Experimenting with the dark

Stacey Robbins wrote about her family's "Nature Month" experiment in her blog, staceyrobbins.com. Little did she know then that the "month" would last from August to December. Here are a few excerpts:

Day 2

The nighttime is dark for a reason and I'm becoming aware that our culture has spent generations seeing it as something to conquer or defy.

And I fear, mostly for the sake of efficiency. And efficiency is almost always about money. It talks like this:

"If we can invade the dark with light, we can get more work done."

And please don't think I'm against efficiency, I'm not. But I am against trading my soul for the sake of it and I have a little more time to think about that – now that it's pitch black and all – and my thoughts, that get set aside during a busy day, seem to come forth to be settled with during the night.

Maybe that's what we're avoiding by keeping everything light all the time and working/playing all the time .... maybe we're just avoiding our thoughts.

Our 'self.'

Day 6

Night 6 of our Nature Month where we have almost no electricity and have been turning the Wi-Fi off ... but not enough.

... Well, this has been bothering me a lot. Especially today. Since he's not on call anymore and our main and major excuse for having the Internet is gone. So, at some point, I turned to Rock tonight – while he was reading the news and I was watching Political Animals on Hulu.com (all by candlelight) and I said, "I want to say something but I don't want to say it."

He seemed concerned so, I pulled the Band-Aid off quickly:

"I want you to call Time Warner to have them turn the Internet off, starting tomorrow."

He turned to me relieved and caught.

I said, "We're doing the same stuff we do, only in the dark. And that wasn't the point." He hung his head and laughed, nodding and looked back up into my face, "Rock, I don't want to get to the end of this month-long experiment and say, 'We did it. But we didn't do it.'"

Day 26

The boys have slept really well despite outside noises and no fans creating white noise to cover up those outside sounds.

They've slept with night air all summer, even during the hottest times – no air conditioning, no fans.

I'm really grateful for this experience and that I have a willing husband and adventurous kids.

Here's what I posted on Facebook tonight. It sums it up rather well:

The breeze is beautiful. It's lighter outside than it is in the house because the sun sets on the other side, hiding us in early darkness.

This has been a special time. The candle lighting feels ceremonial.

The dark feels sacred.

But that's because it is. We just don't always allow ourselves to experience it.

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